Firefox Gets File Sharing Extension 337
Jonnty writes "Firefox finally has a good P2P extension.. "[It] incorporates peer-to-peer capabilities into the browser via a sidebar. AllPeers "combines the strength of Firefox and the efficiency of BitTorrent" to add media sharing to the long list of available extensions." "
The Amenities! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anime is a genre, just as film noire is; each an adjective expanding the precision of English.
Anime = 3 sylables, Japanese Animation = 7 syllables: a greater than 50% increase in verbage to string it out. Some would have it be Japanime, but most who do know the word will know what one means by Anime. It adds to the utility of the language.
If you really want to rail against a coined word, go after methodology(ies) whenever used to mean method(s). It's the best example of incorrectly inflating a word purely for pretention. Methodology should only mean the study of methods.
Re:The Amenities! (Score:3, Informative)
What anime is. (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime [wikipedia.org]
covers the topic nicely
Re:The Amenities! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:2)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:2)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The Amenities! (Score:3, Funny)
N-now? Really? Awll-riiight giggidygiggidy!
The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are other protocols that, in my opinion, are better that BT. I've seen a few that use other (third party) users to mask both the sender and receiver from one-another. I believe this is going to be important especially when it comes to government regulation and censorship. I'm anti-copyright, so I couldn't care less about who owns what.
I believe the next step beyond the protocol will be the need to find a way to properly packet-ize information better. I guess ZIP or RAR is fine, but it isn't enough. A sender of any media (website, file, e-mail, etc) would need to implement the data into a packet and set that packet as public or private. Public packets could be dropped into the "Sharing" folder, which replaces the temporary internet files folder completely. Users would instantly share the webpage packets, the image packets and even the music or programs they download.
Popular files would be much easier to get, and the shortcomings of BitTorrent in terms of censorship would be greatly reduced. I could even see a future where we could do away with DNS in the long term as we could access webpages or other information through this network of shared temporary file folders. No need to host your own information on a server, just drop it into your share/temp folder and let others find it via whatever search engine or "torrent host" they use.
really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:really? (Score:2)
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome, write the plugin and get into the browser. Perhaps if everyone has easy access to it (like they now will w/BT built in) then they will start to use it. The reason that HTTP and FTP are so popular is because support for those protocols were built into the browsers and you didn't need to have an external application fielding the transmissions.
If Foo P2P protocol is made available to everyone easily via IE and Firefox then they will pick it up quickly.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2)
Where can I download a browser that doesn't support HTTP?
Isn't that kinda like write-only memory?
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Informative)
Here you go [quux.org]
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, that's why Gopher is the runaway success it is today.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:5, Insightful)
These protocols need one or more centralized server(s) to function properly.
Another idiotic idea. Why the hell would I want to spend my time LOOKING for the website I want, instead of just plain visiting it? Yes, this WOULD require me to look for the website. Also, security (Login information, et cetera) is practically impossible in such situations.
What you're basically saying, is that we should all go back to sharing plain-text ASCII, but in a new way.
I say NO THANK YOU, please leave the internet as it is already.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:5, Interesting)
That isn't true at all. P2P is finding ways to de-centralize more and more every day.
The idea of a third party intermediary is not unheard of -- in fact, there are numerous BitTorrent replacement protocols being developed right now that take advantage of another user on a network to mask the sender and receiver from one-another. You can go out and get the latest "pirate" MP3, but you have no idea who you're getting it from and they have no idea who they're sending it to. I find that this is a better way to keep over-regulation of the Internet down, and uphold the right to free expression.
Another idiotic idea. Why the hell would I want to spend my time LOOKING for the website I want, instead of just plain visiting it? Yes, this WOULD require me to look for the website. Also, security (Login information, et cetera) is practically impossible in such situations.
I'm an anarchocapitalist, and I hate knowing that DNS will likely be the control system our governments user to censor the information out there. I'm constantly trying to find theories in how we could use the Internet without central regulation (such as DNS), and I feel that networks are becoming more and more transparent to domain names as time goes on. Yes, google and other search engines rely on domain names but this is merely to keep things simple. Over time I believe we'll see search engines develop that completely ignore domain names -- although how we'd link to one another is another problem, but that is being worked on as well.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2)
Do you know how DNS works?
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Funny)
try : http://66.35.250.150/ [66.35.250.150]
> networks are becoming more and more transparent to domain names
what does this mean ?
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:4, Funny)
Well I'm even more whacked out than you. I'm a chaoscapitalist. Markets should be totally random.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Informative)
You have IP of Anonymizer.
Anonymizer has your IP and target IP.
Anonymizer is in a country that is not subject to U.S. Laws, does not keep logs, and uses encrypted communications with you.
Target IP may be another anonymizer in yet another country.
Ultimate target id is offering file you want.
So much for how it works...
Problem: No accountability. Leeches overwhelm seeders.
So you really need accountability to support p2p.
What seems to be happening.
Private invitation only tracker sites with
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but what if the anonymizer computer is owned by the US Government, or the RIAA. They know who you are, and then can knock on your door.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2)
Another idiotic idea. Why the hell would I want to spend my time LOOKING for the website I want, instead of just plain visiting it? Yes, this WOULD require me to look for the website. Also, security (Login information, et cetera) is practically impossible in such situations.
Why would you have to look for the site any more
re: several flaws in your ideas, I think.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Among other things, it makes the assumption that users have plenty of upstream bandwidth, so their Internet performance won't be drastically impacted by this process running in the background.
In reality, the ISPs have *no* interest
Re: several flaws in your ideas, I think.... (Score:3, Insightful)
We have it now. They are called servers -- FTP servers, web servers, etc. I can put an image up with one command and anybody in the world with internet access can see it with a simple text string called a URL. The same goes for
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this position slightly disturbing. Well, more than slightly.
Has copyright law gotten out of hand? When work is copyrighted for the life of the creator plus 75 years, that is excessive. When copyrights keep getting extended and extended to protect works owned by companies, that is excessive.
However, the basic premise behind copyright is sound. If you write a book or compose a symphony, you SHOULD have the exclusive copyright on that work. It's your creation to do with as you see fit, whether it's put it in the public domain right away, lock it in a drawer, perform it in public for a fee, publish it, etc. It is completely up to the copyright holder to decide what happens to the work.
Your attitude, sir, carries a message of disrespect and contempt for copyright holders. Basically you're saying "F*** you and your rights, I'm going to take your creative work and do with it what I damn well please." Fair Use rights, you say? Why should I as a content provider respect your Fair Use rights if you don't respect my copyrights?
While I have no solid facts to back it, my gut tells me that if the content providers' copyrights were respected, then DRM wouldn't come around. DRM R&D costs time and money, and if copyright was on the whole respected, then the costs would outweight the revenues thet it would protect, and as everybody knows, a business won't do something if it doesn't bring a profit.
However, as long as there are enough visible attitudes like yours, DRM development will continue at the expense of Fair Use.
(and yes, I live in a Utopian world where political correctness and DRM isn't needed because people just "get along.")
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Informative)
You're exactly right! If only those companies who specialize in distributing shiny discs and losing money on lots of smaller acts so they don't have to pay taxes, respected copyrights, then we'd have more than 0 works entering the public domain since 1923.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm. So if you memorize one of my poems and want to recite it to a friend, I should have the right to use force to stop you? "Shut up or I'll shoot!"
No.
Ideas are not property. If you recite my poem, you take nothing away from me. My poem is not "mine" in the same sense that my guitar is "mine"; it more "mine" in the sense of "that's my girlfriend" or "that's my father". To say "the poem is mine" expresses relationship, not ownership. Any artist knows that the work "comes from, but mostly through" [billyjonas.com].
My ethical rights as a creator are to have that relationship recognized, and to get my cut of any money that someone makes with that work. I think the way songwriter royalties currently work is the closest thing to a a workable "rights" system: you can play my songs all you want, but if you cover them on a CD, or play them and get paid, you owe me a royalty.
A copyright is an artificial legal creation. A "fair use right" is not a right unto itself, but a limitation on those artificial legal creation - these "fair use rights" (and many more) would exist if all copyright laws were repealed.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2)
No.
I agree...that should come under Fair Use (and somebody should tell those creeps that decide to enforce copyright on scout troops that want to sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" around campfires) plus your means of enforcement breaks other laws (manslaughter, murder, etc.)
But what if I don't recite it, rather I print it and sell the printed copy for a profit or r
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Interesting)
You find that surprising? The copyright holders have sent a message of disrespect and contempt to their customers for decades now, and are getting more and more insane each passing second, they don't just say "F*** you and your rights", they got the power to fuck my rights themselves if they wis
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Interesting)
> Why should I as a content provider respect your Fair Use rights if you don't respect my copyrights?
You're forgetting that copyright is not a right, it's a compromise. It basically says that in order to encourage the artist to publish his/her work, the artist is given a limitted monopoly on his work. If other people don't respect your copyright, you have three options (1) prosecute them under copyright law, (2) not release yo
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, copyright does NOT control your thoughts and actions. By copyrighting something, I do NOT con
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2)
I believe the next step beyond the protocol will be the need to find a way to properly packet-ize information better. I guess ZIP or RAR is fine, but it isn't enough. A sender of any media (website, file, e-mail, etc) would need to implement the data into a packet and set that packet as public or private. Public packets could be dropped into the "Sharing" folder, which replaces the temporary internet files folder completely. Users would instantly share the webpage packets, the image packets and even the mus
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:5, Insightful)
I look at the fact that I've earned a VERY good living the past 18 years by providing all my "creative" productions for free, and have never asked anyone to give me a dime or even give me recognition. My company wrote a very popular (in our market area) POP3/SMTP server over a decade ago that we gave away freely, and it made us a ton of cash in service. I write a few newsletters that I freely mail out (costing me thousands annually) that makes me decent money on speaking engagements. I've written 2 books that I've handed out person to person that nets me about $20 per reader (I request the money at the end of the book and I've received more than I've paid to get the books out). I've produced a few indie bands that have made more money giving away their music and not binding the listeners to copyright -- they make their money producing live music for their fans.
I see no need for copyright, and I've made good money without it. The only people I see making money WITH copyright are the publishing cartels, never the artists (except in extremely rare cases).
If you're a publisher, artist, musician or writer, don't look at copyright to make you rich. Hard work and getting out to see your fans makes you wealthier than protecting you work from unlimited copying.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Side thought: If *every* browser had a filesharing extension, wouldn't that make ALL browser users equally "guilty of theft" by the RIAA's lights?? I foresee interesting legal tangles.
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Interesting)
????
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2)
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you eliminate incentives to create original works, you will absolutely limit original works.
You make a huge, and clearly erroneous, leap in logic there.
While copyright has provided a huge incentive, the world is in the process of moving on to new incentives and dada's own experience is one such example.
When making a copy becomes a zero-marginal cost action, charging for making c
Re:The future of data sharing? (Score:2)
I make a lot of posts. My view on copyright is a RARE opinion, but the only way to make an opinion heard is to be consistent. On another note, slashdot has millions of unique visitors monthly, so who knows who has heard me before and who hasn't. And on top of all that, I love to hear the debates which do help me formulate better opinions and theories. As long as copyright is part of the discussion, it isn't wrong
Brilliant! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:2, Informative)
Firefox EULA [mozilla.org]
Re:Brilliant! (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.betanews.com/article/BitTorrent_Hollyw
Re:Brilliant! (Score:3, Interesting)
How come everyone automatically leaps at the pirating side of Bittorrent? Bittorrent is quite an idea, using distributed bunches of bandwidth to serve a file instead of a server needing a lot of bandwidth.
There are a lot of legitimate uses for this technology, such as, Linux distribution. I've noticed it used a lot in this vein, and it takes a lot of pressure off web servers, especially in the OSS market where profits are slim-to-none for the server itself.
I understand that Bittorrent is usually used fo
avoid slashdot effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
damn good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:2, Interesting)
Good idea, I'd like to see it make use of the various users' ISP caches, too. Much like what some eMule variations currently do.
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:2)
Would it be easier to check and see if there was a Coral Cache [coralcdn.org]'d version and then serve that up instead? Why build a new network (which using BT for would be silly as small-sized content over BT is ridiculous) when you could just utilize something that already exists?
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because Coral Cache is an anonymous proxy, and a lot of corporate (and governmental) firewalls block anonymous proxies. Plus, if certain legislative bodies get what they want, you'll find ISPs being forced to block anonymous proxies as well.
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:2)
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:5, Funny)
That's a great idea. That way, when I log on to my bank's website and find my balance near zero, it can search other browsers for a version of the page with money. Let the wealth be distributed! Power to the people!
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:2)
Nope, I sure don't see any potential security issues with THIS idea...
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:2)
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:avoid slashdot effect? (Score:2)
Check it out: seeder-chan.sf.net [sourceforge.net]
It's pretty close-minded (mainly for use with "imageboard" scripts) but it can be easily expanded into a full Coral cache system.
Free? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Free? (Score:2)
It wouldn't surprise me if it was free(speech) as OSS P2P system + OSS Crazed FF Extension Developers could well = Open Source P2P Extension.
Re:Free? (Score:2)
Actually, it doesn't sound like a BitTorrent client at all. It sounds kinda like AIMster if you remember that thing. You add buddies from some network to the sidebar and you can trade files with each other through that sidebar.
It says "the power of BitTorrent" it says nothing about actually implementing the BitTorrent protocol. It sort of sounds like a "friends only" file trading network. However, since it doesn't actually exist yet, and the screenshots look faked (specifically this screenshot [nyud.net], the UI
Maybe Possibly (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Maybe Possibly (Score:2)
Nice Pre-Release PR (Score:5, Interesting)
Color me cynical, and unimpressed.
Re:Nice Pre-Release PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this impressive, again? My browsing and file-sharing are completely separate tasks, and the integration is as logical as putting file system defragmenting in a sidebar.
This would be a good analogy if the only way you could defragment your hard drive was by clicking on links in firefox. When I click on an ftp link in firefox, firefox doesn't launch my ftp client. Why should clicking a torrent link be any different? To the average user, they're both just download links.
Re:Nice Pre-Release PR (Score:2)
With the exception that one of them causes your computer to start uploading data to other people. The average user might be surprised when clicking on a link causes this to happen; complete Firefox-Bittorrent integration is possibly a bad idea because of this. (Although I have no problem with an extension. ^_^)
Re:Nice Pre-Release PR (Score:2)
Re:Nice Pre-Release PR (Score:5, Funny)
The closest my box of crayons has is periwinkle and forest green. Will those do?
Coral Cache Link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Coral Cache Link (Score:2)
peer networks and sharing mp3s that you own (Score:2)
If you share a file, will your sharing habits be scrutinized by your IP and other outside organizations?
Yuck (Score:3, Interesting)
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitio
<html>
<head><title>AllPeers browser detection</title></head>
<body>
<script>
if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Firefox") != -1)
{
window.location = "index_f.htm";
}
else
{
window.location = "index_nf.htm";
}
</script>
<noscript>
Firefox users, please <a href="/index_f.htm">click here.</a>
Users of other web browsers, please <a href="/index_nf.htm">click here.</a>
</noscript>
</body>
</html>
Incredible! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Implication (Score:5, Interesting)
Not available yet (Score:5, Funny)
So, Slashdot is reposting a short articled posted by an small tech news outlet about a non-existant plug-in for Firefox. Brilliant.
This is why I come to Slashdot every day, folks. These are the big stories no one else has. All presented in a way that's both fair & balanced, giving clear, concise, accurate headlines. No prejudiced opinion pieces. Just pure, unadulterated tech news bliss, straight from the Cowboy's mouth!
Re:Not available yet (Score:2)
Slashdot jumped the shark long ago (*I* think when they were bought by VA, however, the past year has been particularly bad). If digg.com can implement a decent commenting system, this site is finished (FWIW - I hate dropping names like that)
Re:Not available yet (Score:2)
Re:Not available yet (Score:3, Insightful)
what's in a name (Score:5, Funny)
Their webpage... (Score:3, Funny)
Browsing the (BT) net (Score:2)
Mixing the web with BT could have nice implications, could be interesting to have i.e. the bt:// protocol, embed into pages images or files that goes to the bt network (a la img src=bt://whatever.jpg, with good implications for people that want to publish things but dont have huge bandwidth. But for now, the mix is not going too far from just a protocol specific down
Coral Cache works (Score:5, Funny)
What? (Score:5, Funny)
Sweet! (Score:2)
TFA dot zip (Score:3, Funny)
Could make sense--but won't (Score:3, Informative)
It would make great sense to have a p2p protocol that sucked down the first part of the file first, allowing the user to stream straight into the browser.
BT has two attributes that make it a very poor choice for browser integration--the order of downloaded packets is random and BT should stay up long after the file has finished downloading--it's lifetime should not be bound by the lifetime of the browser.
But good concept, but just not quite worth it.
Re:Could make sense--but won't (Score:3, Insightful)
The order of downloaded packets is not necessarily random. There are clients which prioritize early packets. However, this is harmful to the network in that if all the seeds go away, and everyone is prioritizing early packets, then the file will not be completable by anyone.
As for the lifetime of the BT process, generally spea
FF extension security? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:FF extension security? (Score:2, Informative)
See, with Mozilla at least you have the choice of what level of fuckitude you are willing to put on yourself.
MozTorrent (Score:5, Informative)
This Will Have For-Pay Features (Score:3, Interesting)
"How can it be free? There must be a catch.
Nope. Because we're using P2P technology, we don't need to maintain a large server farm for managing huge files collections as our network grows. On top of that, we don't think people should have to pay to share with friends. Of course, we are still a company and we need to make money to pay for the luxurious lifestyle of our development team. That's why we will be deploying new services on AllPeers, some of which will require payment."
If they had the idea for this in 2003 or earlier, it's a bit odd it isn't wasn't shipping some time ago.
Domain Name: ALLPEERS.COM, Record created on 15-Mar-2003
Administrative Contact : RWCM LTD SAINT TROPEZ, 83990 FR (I edited out other details)
Cedric Maloux CEO-Extraordinaire (Score:2, Informative)
This changes nothing (Score:2, Insightful)
Damnit (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My perhaps stupid question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Advertising I bet... (Score:2)
Re:Down (Score:2)